Coronavirus: Staffing at fatal Newmarch House nursing home down by a third

Sydney nursing home admits it struggling to cope with a COVID-19 outbreak which has killed four elderly residents.

Anglicare Newmarch House in Caddens where coronavirus has claimed four elderly residents’ lives. Picture: Jonathan Ng

A Sydney nursing home says it is desperately short staffed and in serious trouble trying to cope with a COVID-19 outbreak which claimed the life of a fourth elderly resident on Thursday, bringing the death toll from the outbreak to four residents in one week.

Almost a third of the 100 residents at Newmarch House have been infected with the virus, while 12 staff have tested positive and 55 staff are in home isolation.

Anglicare, which runs the home, said on Thursday it was grateful for the community’s “prayers during this terrible situation”. But it admitted the aged care facility home in Penrith, in Sydney’s west, was still scrambling to find replacement workers.

“At least one-third of the staffing needs still to be met despite the efforts of Anglicare, third party staffing agencies and the Commonwealth Government,’ Sydney Anglicare CEO Grant Millard said.

Maintaining a “stringent hygiene regime” during the outbreak, including the use of face masks and other PPE by staff and confining residents to their rooms with no visitors had also put a heavy strain on the level of care.

“We appreciate and understand why families are upset, frustrated and disappointed,” Mr Millard said.

“It takes our staff at least five times longer to deliver the care our residents and their families expect.”

Anglicare and NSW Health representatives conducted a virtual meeting with distressed relatives of the residents on Thursday who have demanded urgent action over allegations of “horrendous” conditions inside the home.

They claim residents, who are confined to their own rooms and barred any visits in lockdown, feel frightened, neglected and “in danger”.

Some residents have also reported they are missing meals and no laundry was being done, forcing them to lie in dirty bedsheets.

“We are working hard to contain this virus and provide our residents with the care they have been used to and deserve,” Mr Millard said.

The outbreak began with an aged-care worker who worked at the home six days running, unaware her mild respiratory symptoms and a “scratchy throat” were symptoms of coronavirus.

The facility went into immediate lockdown after the woman tested positive on April 11 and NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant said the worker had been “mortified and distraught” at the thought she had unknowingly infected her vulnerable patients.

Relatives of some of the residents who gathered outside Newmarch House on Wednesday accused Anglicare of failing to move quickly enough to manage the desperate con­ditions inside the home.

One distressed relative, identifying herself only as “Savannah” told Sydney radio station 2GB on Thursday that the lack of staff had left her 92-year-old grandmother feeling her “dignity was stripped” when she was forced to go to the toilet in a garbage bin.

She had also failed to get staff to help her access her locked bathroom and had not been showered in days.

Early last month, Baptist Care’s Dorothy Henderson Lodge in Macquarie Park was the first confirmed cluster in NSW. Six of the 16 infected residents have since died from the virus.